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"I can't believe this is the first time you're coming to my house," Beverley exclaims. "We've been friends for like, I don't know, two months now?"

"I know! And you've been to my house like three times," I reply.

She turns into a drive on our right and parks her KA behind a big truck. Her little car just fits onto the drive with the monster in front of us taking up all of the room.

"That's my stupid brother's car, like it can get any fucking bigger," Bev cusses, making me wince.

I hate swearing.

"It is very big," I comment when I get out of her car.

She rolls her eyes and I follow her up the driveway to the door. Bev flicks her short dreads over her shoulder and opens the door for us, it's unlocked so someone must be home. I wish I had short hair like Bev sometimes.

Hair is really important in my culture. Long hair symbolises health, fertility and femininity. I don't even bother asking my mum anymore because I know she won't let me get it cut. I get the occasional trim to keep it healthy, but my dead-straight black hair reaches below my waist. I have to plait it back so that I don't sit on it all of the time. It's a nuisance.

I enter her house and the smell of vanilla hits me, it's coming from the diffuser by the door. I can understand why they have it, there must be about sixteen pairs of shoes on the floor around us.

"Ignore the mess, my parents work full time," Bev says, waving her hand.

Why don't they hire a cleaner?

My mum would be holding her forehead and fainting right about now. She's obsessive about our home being 'guest-ready' at all times. I'm sixteen and she still makes me clean my room every single week.

Beverley is seventeen, that's how she's able to drive. It was her birthday last month and her parents bought her a car. I have no idea what my parents are going to get me for my seventeenth next year, but I bet it's not a car.

Beverley got held back a year because she missed a lot of school with an ongoing medical problem. She had severe appendicitis which lead to surgeries and kidney infections and ended with school advising her to take the rest of the year off and come back in September to start again.

It basically means one of my best friends is a year older than me and so much cooler. She's the only one in our year that can drive and that makes her like royalty or something. I'm her Indian friend that tags along next to her.

(: insecurities of the female lead, not me putting down an Indian character, she's bloody gorgeous and we know it)

We go through to the kitchen and Bev puts four slices of bread in the toaster. She sits down at the table and I copy her. We get out our phones and scroll through our newsfeeds whilst we wait for the toast to pop up.

There's a massive thud and then a loud curse from upstairs. We both look up at the ceiling. Bev curses and mutters something under her breath. She glances at me and shakes her head in disappointment.

"My idiot brother. Hard to believe he's my twin. I'm so obviously the better half. I like to call him parasite," she explains.

I knew she had a twin, but he's in the year above because he wasn't held back a year. I've never seen him before, Bev doesn't talk about him much. For twins, they're not very close.

The toast pops up and we smother the slices in Nutella. I eat every single crumb and then lick my fingers. I love nutella.

"Let's go to my room," Bev suggests.

I follow her upstairs. At the top of the stairs is the landing with a whole bunch of doors leading off it. At the far end is Bev's room, signposted by a hand-painted sign. I spot her brother's room straight away, directly opposite. There is a large metal 'O' for Oscar hanging on the door.

Bev and I walk towards her room, Oscar's door opens behind our backs.

"Yo, sis, you making toast?" He asks.

I glance over my shoulder and get my first glimpse of my best friend's twin.

Oh sweet Krishna, he's handsome.

He shares Bev's eyes, a swirling mix of blue and green. They're so beautiful. It was the first thing I noticed about Bev and the first I noticed about Oscar. He has short black hair that has been styled with some kind of hair clay or something like that.

He's still wearing his school uniform, but his tie is missing and his shirt buttons are partially undone. He's rolled his sleeves up which reveals some writing on his wrist and hand, no doubt reminders or silly notes from his friends.

Oscar looks me up and down, clearly checking me out. His eyes are shining and there is a half-smile on his rose-pink lips.

Oh my gosh, he's checking me out!

"Who's this?" He asks appreciatively.

My cheeks instantly heat up.

That's it, I'm going to die of a heart attack right here on the landing.

My last meal was two slices of toast with Nutella, it's a good way to go.

"This is Prisha, perv, I've talked about her. Make your own damn toast and don't disturb us!" Bev replies sassily.

She grabs my wrist and pulls me. My eyes remain locked with Oscar's as she pulls me towards her room.

"Nice to meet you, Prisha," he says and then winks at me.

I trip over my feet making Oscar chuckle and Bev curse. She shuts the door behind me and rolls her eyes.

"Don't go all gooey-eyed on me, Prish, he's really not all that," she says. "I can't lose another friend to my twin brother."

I shake my head and give her a dazed smile. "You won't."

She won't, right?

He was so hot though...

"Come get on the bed, I want to show you these videos on Tik Tok."

Bev pats the space next to her and I climb on. We sit and watch videos for an hour or so. I can't stop thinking about Oscar, though. I've never seen someone so attractive, and that cheeky way he winked at me! Boys never wink at me at school. They know they haven't got a chance, I don't date, I don't kiss and I'm not normally allowed to parties. I'm a good girl and everyone knows it.

My mum would never let me bring a boy like Oscar home. He's not Indian, he's not Hindu, he's not an option. She wants me to marry a nice, Hindu Indian boy. I think that I'm sixteen and far too young to be worrying about marriage, but she does all the worrying for both of us. It doesn't help that my two older sisters are already married at twenty and twenty-three.

Way to put the pressure on, ladies.

"I'm going to get some water, do you want a drink?" I ask Bev, it's a little ironic seeing as this is her home, but Mum has raised me to be a hostess.

"Nah, I'm alright thanks," Bev replies, glancing between her phone and the TV show that is playing on her flatscreen. "Glasses are in the cupboard above the sink, want me to get it for you?"

I brush her off. "No, don't worry about it."

I go downstairs and hunt down a glass. Once I've had a drink, I get a piece of gum from my bag and pop it in my mouth to get rid of the Nutella taste. When I come back upstairs, Oscar's door opens. I jump and watch him nervously. He leans against the doorjamb and looks me up and down again.

"Prisha," his husky voice makes my name sound more beautiful than ever. "You've not come round before."

I glance at Beverley's closed door at the end of the corridor and silently wonder if she would be annoyed that I'm talking to her brother. But he's talking to me...and I like it.

"No, I haven't," I reply and start to nervously babble as Oscar pushes off of the wall and gets closer to me. "We were saying that it's funny because we've been friends for months and she's been to my house like two or three times but I've never been to hers so we thought I'd come round tonight and oh my gosh, shut up Prisha."

My cheeks heat up again and Oscar chuckles. He is now directly opposite me and I can smell his Lynx Africa body spray. I recognise it immediately because so many boys at school wear it. It seems to smell even better on him, though.

"You're cute," he comments. I feel as though my face must be bright red right now, it feels like it. He smiles and his eyes scan over my face. "Really cute."

Oscar freaking Nichols just called me cute.

"Um..." I mumble, unsure of what to reply.

"Do I make you nervous?" He asks with a grin that tells me he already knows the answer and loves it.

"A little," I confess shyly.

He leans in closer to me and I resist leaning back, his cool breath hits my face. "Why?"

My eyes drop to his lips and, as soon as I realise what they're doing, I drag them back up to his eyes but it's too late, he's already noticed. His grin widens.

"Uh, because..." What was I going to say again? "Because..."

He leans in closer. "Because you want me to kiss you?"

What? No!

Yes.

I open and close my mouth, but nothing comes out. Oscar closes the tiny gap between us and presses his lips to mine. For a second, I'm frozen with my eyes open. My brain catches up and tells me that Oscar's eyes are closed so I should close mine, too.

I snap them shut and stop being frozen. I shyly press my lips back against his.

Why, oh why do I have to have gum in my mouth right now?

I stealthily shove it to the corner of my mouth and soften my lips against his. Oscar's hands make me jump when they land on my waist. No guy has ever kissed me before. No guy has ever even touched me like this.

He leads the kiss completely but never tries to deepen it for which I am eternally grateful because of the gum situation. He pecks my lips one more time before leaning back. His eyes scan my face again and he smiles.

"So damn cute," he mutters, making me smile in return.

"I should..." I trail off but manage to point in the direction of Bev's door like a mute.

Oscar sighs in disappointment. "Okay, cutie, but you come back out here in half an hour, yeah? Say you need the toilet or something. Come knock on my door, I want to kiss you again."

It's official, I'm the colour of a tomato.

No amount of tanned brown skin is going to hide this blush.

"Okay," I respond numbly.

I somehow manage to make it to Bev's door. She looks up from her phone and pats the space next to her once more.

"More videos! Join me!"

I lie next to her, barely processing the clips she shows me. All I can think about is how my lips are still tingling and how I just lost my first kiss to my best friend's brother.

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Identifying as Christian doesn't stop me loving and learning about other religions. I personally love hijabs and would wear one if it wasn't insanely offensive/cultural appropriation.

Having a variety of religions and secularity in an area is so important to me❤️